The Iron Heel eBook

FOREWORD

It cannot be said that the Everhard Manuscript is
an important historical document. To the historian
it bristles with errors—­not errors of fact,
but errors of interpretation. Looking back across
the seven centuries that have lapsed since Avis Everhard
completed her manuscript, events, and the bearings
of events, that were confused and veiled to her, are
clear to us. She lacked perspective. She
was too close to the events she writes about.
Nay, she was merged in the events she has described.

Nevertheless, as a personal document, the Everhard
Manuscript is of inestimable value. But here
again enter error of perspective, and vitiation due
to the bias of love. Yet we smile, indeed, and
forgive Avis Everhard for the heroic lines upon which
she modelled her husband. We know to-day that
he was not so colossal, and that he loomed among the
events of his times less largely than the Manuscript
would lead us to believe.

We know that Ernest Everhard was an exceptionally
strong man, but not so exceptional as his wife thought
him to be. He was, after all, but one of a large
number of heroes who, throughout the world, devoted
their lives to the Revolution; though it must be conceded
that he did unusual work, especially in his elaboration
and interpretation of working-class philosophy.
“Proletarian science” and “proletarian
philosophy” were his phrases for it, and therein
he shows the provincialism of his mind—­a
defect, however, that was due to the times and that
none in that day could escape.

But to return to the Manuscript. Especially valuable
is it in communicating to us the feel of those
terrible times. Nowhere do we find more vividly
portrayed the psychology of the persons that lived
in that turbulent period embraced between the years
1912 and 1932—­their mistakes and ignorance,
their doubts and fears and misapprehensions, their
ethical delusions, their violent passions, their inconceivable
sordidness and selfishness. These are the things
that are so hard for us of this enlightened age to
understand. History tells us that these things
were, and biology and psychology tell us why they were;
but history and biology and psychology do not make
these things alive. We accept them as facts,
but we are left without sympathetic comprehension
of them.

This sympathy comes to us, however, as we peruse the
Everhard Manuscript. We enter into the minds
of the actors in that long-ago world-drama, and for
the time being their mental processes are our mental
processes. Not alone do we understand Avis Everhard’s
love for her hero-husband, but we feel, as he felt,
in those first days, the vague and terrible loom of
the Oligarchy. The Iron Heel (well named) we
feel descending upon and crushing mankind.